Latest news with #IndependentAnti-CorruptionCommission
Perth Now
2 days ago
- Health
- Perth Now
Hospital in hot water over 'cooking the books' claims
A major public hospital has been accused of pulling the wool over health authorities' eyes by doctoring emergency patient transfer records. Staff at Melbourne's Northern Hospital have allegedly routinely doctored records since 2017 to show patients being offloaded from ambulances within target times, the Herald Sun reports. Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said she wasn't aware of the "serious" claims from an unnamed hospital whistleblower until Tuesday evening. In response, Ms Thomas has ordered the health department work with the hospital at Epping in Melbourne's outer north to investigate. "These are all anonymous allegations to date," she told reporters on Wednesday. "Nonetheless, we need to find out exactly what has happened." Northern Health said in a statement it was reviewing the matter but taking the allegations "very seriously". Ms Thomas has not viewed reported screenshots of the falsified offload times but said she would welcome the documents being shared. She encouraged whistleblowers to come forward with information to hospital leaders, her office or the Independent Anti-Corruption Commission. "We'll get to the bottom of what's happening out at Northern and when I find out more I'll be happy to share it with you," the minister said. Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier believes the problem of "systematic fudging" may be more widespread. She is demanding an investigation be done at arm's length of government and will write to the Victorian Auditor-General's Office to request a separate probe. Victoria's statewide benchmark is for 90 per cent of ambulance patients to be transferred to emergency care within 40 minutes of arrival. Northern Health aims for 80 per cent within 40 minutes. An ambulance transfer is not considered complete until clinical information is handed over to an emergency department doctor and a patient has been moved to a hospital bed, care area, or waiting room. The latest statewide data shows 69.6 per cent of ambulance patients were admitted to an emergency department within 40 minutes. The median wait time in March was 26 minutes. Northern Hospital's median transfer time and performance against the 40-minute benchmark was consistently better than the statewide average. Ms Thomas insisted funding was not tied to hospitals hitting the key performance indicators. "There are no financial incentives to cooking the books," she said. But when unveiling new standards across all emergency departments to reduce ambulance ramping in February, she warned there would be "consequences" for failures. Ms Thomas on Wednesday sought to clarify she was referring to forcing hospital leaders to meet with her to explain the results. Hospitals were required to deliver a four per cent improvement in ambulance offload times by the end of June. Some of the state's busiest hospitals have demonstrated improvements of up to 10 per cent in transfer times since the introduction of the standards, Ms Thomas said.
West Australian
2 days ago
- Health
- West Australian
Hospital in hot water over 'cooking the books' claims
A major public hospital has been accused of pulling the wool over health authorities' eyes by doctoring emergency patient transfer records. Staff at Melbourne's Northern Hospital have allegedly routinely doctored records since 2017 to show patients being offloaded from ambulances within target times, the Herald Sun reports. Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said she wasn't aware of the "serious" claims from an unnamed hospital whistleblower until Tuesday evening. In response, Ms Thomas has ordered the health department work with the hospital at Epping in Melbourne's outer north to investigate. "These are all anonymous allegations to date," she told reporters on Wednesday. "Nonetheless, we need to find out exactly what has happened." Northern Health said in a statement it was reviewing the matter but taking the allegations "very seriously". Ms Thomas has not viewed reported screenshots of the falsified offload times but said she would welcome the documents being shared. She encouraged whistleblowers to come forward with information to hospital leaders, her office or the Independent Anti-Corruption Commission. "We'll get to the bottom of what's happening out at Northern and when I find out more I'll be happy to share it with you," the minister said. Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier believes the problem of "systematic fudging" may be more widespread. She is demanding an investigation be done at arm's length of government and will write to the Victorian Auditor-General's Office to request a separate probe. Victoria's statewide benchmark is for 90 per cent of ambulance patients to be transferred to emergency care within 40 minutes of arrival. Northern Health aims for 80 per cent within 40 minutes. An ambulance transfer is not considered complete until clinical information is handed over to an emergency department doctor and a patient has been moved to a hospital bed, care area, or waiting room. The latest statewide data shows 69.6 per cent of ambulance patients were admitted to an emergency department within 40 minutes. The median wait time in March was 26 minutes. Northern Hospital's median transfer time and performance against the 40-minute benchmark was consistently better than the statewide average. Ms Thomas insisted funding was not tied to hospitals hitting the key performance indicators. "There are no financial incentives to cooking the books," she said. But when unveiling new standards across all emergency departments to reduce ambulance ramping in February, she warned there would be "consequences" for failures. Ms Thomas on Wednesday sought to clarify she was referring to forcing hospital leaders to meet with her to explain the results. Hospitals were required to deliver a four per cent improvement in ambulance offload times by the end of June. Some of the state's busiest hospitals have demonstrated improvements of up to 10 per cent in transfer times since the introduction of the standards, Ms Thomas said.
